Through BzzAgent I signed up for a campaign to check out a Facebook App called Final Wishes from Otrib.com The app allows you to name someone to take over your Facebook account in case of your death.

The concept was interesting enough to try out and see what the app was about, but after I took a look I removed it from my app page on Facebook because I’m honestly not concerned with what happens to my Facebook or any other of my online stuff when I die. I figure the people who need to know will know, and well… I guess the part of me that resides in cyberspace goes into limbo when I am no longer on this planet. The app also lets you link and have an heir to your twitter account as well as other social networking websites.

For some people I’m sure this would be fitting for them or they would find it useful.

On another hand though, I can see the pluses of setting up this service. It’s common place these days to have the experience of someone you know who you are connected with on Facebook to pass away. I know of at least one FB’er who has left a family member’s profile set on her friend’s list after her untimely passing because it simply seemed to painful to “defriend”. Having it handled in a way predetermined by the account holder upon their death could perhaps make it less painful for people to go and see the last way their friend/family member left their profile before passing.

I know a lot of people using Facebook these days not just for personal reasons, but for business and social networking reasons as well. Again, a death notice would in fact make sense in some of these cases, if the account holder wanted a large amount of people informed of their passing.

Otrib also allows you to make memorial pages, provides chat forums for those dealing with the loss of a loved one, and offers death/funeral planning information. They also offer a voicemail service to inform people of the death of someone by creating your message and then entering the numbers you want the message sent too. I take a bit of issue with this, since I would feel very upset learning about a loved one’s death through a voicemail. I can understand how difficult it can be to make the same call time and time again to everyone informing them of someone’s passing, however it is a necessary duty in life. I think I would rather see the task handed off to another friend or family member who could deal with it better than have it handed off to a voicemail messaging system.

Like this:

LikeLoading...

Related

After an acquaintance was killed, Facebook kept prompting me to add him as a friend. I guess that’s one argument on the plus side. But the voice mail and death announcement thing, that’s just effed up.